Going around in circles about purchase of new scope!!!!!!!

[dephelis]

Two things worth bearing in mind here, Goto might be quicker if the set-up is stationary and the scope is cooled (ambient), otherwise it wont be quicker than a Dob, which given its open tube should acclimatise way quicker than an SCT of any size.

Similary push to is a great way to speed up the star-hopping process and is reletively easy to mod a Dob with, even I did it. What I did initially was to push to all the way to the object, but once this seemed a lot like cheating I followed the arrows until nearish then used a star altas to star hop the rest. You need a decent finder and a wide EP to begin with to ensure success.

Certainly the 200 Dob is the way to start, at F6 (almost) you wont need the most expensive EP's to enjoy good clean FOV's and once collimated it should stay that way unless you're clumsy!

HTH

GOTO mount setup time and scope cool down time are unrelated and should not appear in the same sentence.

For those that read this later: different telescopes have different cool down tines. Large telescopes with closed off ends (Maks and SCTs) take longer to cool than open end designs (Newtonians). This will be the same whatever mount you have. You will have to wait for the telescope to cool before you can use it for high power observing, although you can still use it for low power observing in the meantime.

[CSM]

The way individuals do their astronomy is very personal. Furthermore, as you get into it your ideas may change - radically. I know you say you are in a hurry but starting small may actually work out much better. And, if you have not already done so, go to your local society and a star party and try to look through as many scopes as possible, and watch how people operate them.

[Astrosurf]

Surely a red dot finder or Telrad on a Dob would assist star hopping?

Alexxx

[pyrasanth]

I asked a question to myself. Do I want to spend time each night setting up my telescope,getting all the accessories out & constantly worrying about polar alignment & other mechanics or just have fun observing. I choose the easy route- perhaps I'm just lazy. I remove the covers from my telescope, plug in my laptop & away I go. Yes I have the luxury of a very nice mount but boy did it take some setting up & learning! It has taken me nearly a month to get the mount polar aligned and the pointing model working to my satisfaction within the only 4 observing sessions I've had in that time. This has taken a lot of reading & research to even glean a basic understanding of the Paramount MX+ and its powerful software system.

There is never an easy solution. A better mount can make the job easier but ultimately your going to get out of it what you put in. Time invested in learning the basics of celestial mechanics will pay dividends what ever mount you aspire to or what ever alignment system you choose.